Vote down?

Geert, that’s a great point! Breaking from tab order is definitely a trade-off, and one I try to be mindful of. That’s part of why I’ve started shying away from patterns that require drastic structural changes—like, say, putting the navigation at the bottom of the document’s source, and then pulling it visually to the top of the page.

Some colleagues have suggested it’d be ideal if tab order followed the visual presentation. But that aside, it’s worth noting that all the questions I ask myself are, well, assumptions, often informed by my own biases and expectations—which means those assumptions need to be vetted by real users, as early as possible in the design process.